Calling all potion makers! After a two-month hiatus, the first major update of Potion Punch is finally here!

Dubbed "The Wildwood Forest Update", version 2.0 of Potion Punch brings with it a ton of changes and new content. Ever since the game came out, we've been listening to awesome player feedback that made a lot of sense. Because of this, we spent the past two months addressing gameplay issues, and improving the game even further.

Newcomers won't notice a thing, but seasoned Potion Punch players may soon find themselves surprised by some of the changes. Hopefully this post can shed some light on all the new stuff to expect in this update.

We planned seven venues in total for the initial release of Potion Punch, but due to budget and time constraints, were only able to deliver two. With this update, we've bumped that number to three (hooray). It's not enough, I know. The good news is that with all the other features out of the way, we're now able to focus more on the venues for the next update. In the mean time, here's what you can expect to find in the Wildwood Forest.

CLASSY CUSTOMERS
Meet the impatient high elves, and Moss Stache, the oldest mustachioed living tree on the planet.

COLORFUL ESSENCES
Represented by the color white is the Essence of Valor! A favourite among the high elves, this essence mixes well with the essences of Might (red), Speed (yellow), and Intellect (blue).

QUIRKY ADD-ONS
Who needs health when you've got mana? Adventurers looking to re-energize themselves may start asking for these new gels in their potions. Some may even want to garnish theirs with a parasol made from plants.

COMMON-CLASS POTIONS
Thirsty customers may order the bigger and badder common-class potions. These potions contain two layers of essences so watch out for new challenges ahead!

Some players reported issues with the original shop layout, especially on small mobile devices. Players were having trouble with (1) overlapping dragging lanes, (2) predicting where filled mixing cups would land, and (3) grabbing add-ons without pulling up the Control Center on iOS.

The revamped shop addresses most, if not all these issues. You'll notice a couple of things from the screenshot.

CUP PLACEMENT
All mixing cups are given definite positions on the table, located just below the essence dispensers. You can now select which cup to take and still expect it to return to the same spot after you fill it with essence.

CUP SYMBOLS
Each cup is given a shape marker that matches their position on the prep area. While a cup is being filled with essence, this marker shows the color of the essence being poured into the cup so you know where that cup is at all times.

THE BIG SWITCH
For something that had very little regular activity, the cleaning area was taking up too much important space in the middle so we moved it to where the gels and garnishes used to be. This allowed us to move the add-ons higher and to the center, giving players easier and faster access to them. Goodbye pesky iOS Control Center!

One thing experienced players will immediately notice is the game's new look. We redesigned and animated as many things as we could for a better visual gaming experience.

ESSENCE COLORS
Some players had trouble distinguishing red from orange and orange from brown because of the original color palette we chose. With all the possible color combinations in the game, it was quite a challenge selecting perfectly distinct colors but we've had good results with the new ones so far.

SHOP EQUIPMENT
Because of the revamped layout, we had to redraw all the important shop equipment. This includes all the tables, dispensers, grills, mixing cups, containers, and their upgraded counterparts.

CONDIMENTS
Each of the three available gels now have a unique shape and color to make them easier to spot and identify.

EXPRESSIVE CUSTOMERS
We gave all the humans, dwarves, and bosses of Potion Punch a huge makeover and brought them to life through animation. You can now feel their joy or anger based on how good your customer service skills are. This has no effect on gameplay whatsoever, but it does make the scene feel more alive.

LIVING EMBLEMS
For each day completed, you are awarded three emblems — one for serving a target number of customers, another for keeping all your customers happy, and a third for not making any mistakes in concocting potions. The fact that I have to explain this now means that we failed to make it obvious the first time around. We've tweaked the results window to properly show this and threw in a bunch of animations and effects as a bonus.

PARTICLE PARTY
A bubble here, a glow there, you'll notice a number of these small touches while playing the game. It's way too many to mention. I just hope that we didn't go overboard and cause game performance to slow down too much for older devices.

To say that Potion Punch is challenging is an understatement. Simply put, it's a brutally difficult game. I've been playing it since the prototype but still anything beyond day 30 stresses me out.

INDEPENDENT VENUES
All venues used to share the same shop configuration. As Ironboar Mines' difficulty increased, so did Starluck Village's. For this update, we gave each venue its own shop configuration. This means that if you unlock a new component for Ironboar Mines, it won't show up in Starluck Village. This way, players can go back and play easier venues if they find their current one too difficult

FAST & FREE CLEANING SERVICE
We felt that players were getting punished too much for making mistakes, so the wash basin is now free to use. What's more, the whole cleaning process only takes half-a-second to complete. No upgrades needed.

BOSS BATTLES
Regular customers now enter when the VIP boss customer leaves the shop. This allows players to earn more during boss battle stages whether or not they complete the boss customer's orders.

CLOUD SAVING
One new feature that may get overlooked is cloud saving. Players who log in to Facebook from the game will have their progress stored and synced online.

That's all the major updates for version 2.0 of Potion Punch. We did a couple of smaller bug fixes and game optimizations but they're either too minor, or I've forgotten all about them.

There are still some replayability issues with the game, so we're hoping to address this and finally deliver the four remaining venues in the succeeding updates.

Potion Punch is available on iOS and Android. If you haven't played or updated Potion Punch yet, you can download the game using any of the links below. Thanks for your support!

Apple App Store: http://apple.co/1X9zD8U
Google Play: http://bit.ly/1Trpvm2
Amazon Appstore: COMING SOON